Prodigal Prince, Ch. 1

Why did
you kill me? the little girl asked.

Foxe
knew he was asleep. Alone in the cockpit of his Cat, sliding through D-space
toward Crystal Rendezvous, he was close enough to consciousness to try forcing
the child away in his mind. Sometimes that worked. But now her round little
face grew to fill the viewscreen as if she were trying to push back at him
before he could fight her off.

Why
did you kill me? she repeated.

“Hellcore,”
Foxe whispered.

Firstmark
Hallick had been the target on that mission. Hallick had killed hundreds of her
people in that war—adults and kids, soldiers and civilians. Foxe had been sent
down to the planet to survey the situation, and he’d spotted one chance to
plant a sidewinder bomb on Hallick’s vehicle, just before a cold dawn on a
world whose name he couldn’t remember.

And
the bomb went off too soon. The kids were supposed to be out of the groundskim,
leaving only Hallick and the driver. But something—a random signal? Software
error? Foxe’s hurry? Something went wrong and the vehicle exploded early,
shooting shards of armor and shreds of flesh into the pale sky.

The little girl stared at him, waiting for an answer he could never give
her.

Foxe needed to wake up. His heart pounded inside his chest. His lungs
ached for air. He felt every muscle in his body, every bone, every inch of
skin, tense and ready to explode. He wondered what it would feel like to no
longer feel anything at all . . .

Then
his eyes popped open. Awake.

The little girl was gone, replaced on the viewscreen by the luminous
undulating strings of D-space, twisting like snakes in a pit in a wormhole that
existed outside the real universe where distance didn’t have any measurable
definition.

“Transition
in two minutes,” the NavBoard comp announced.

Foxe
blinked at the D-space countdown clock. Hellcore. He’d slept almost four
hours. He lurched from his seat and staggered to the head. Cupping his hands in
the sink, he took a quick of lukewarm recycled water and washed his face,
stretching his neck and shoulders.

The NavBoard spoke again. “Transition in thirty seconds.”

Okay.Time to go to work. Foxe returned to the cockpit and
strapped himself back in to his seat.

The count reached zero. The screen went black. The deck shuddered beneath
his boots, and for an endless instant Foxe endured the familiar sensation of
being spun, shredded, and slammed back together—a timeless instant that seemed
to last forever and end before it began, as the Cat slid out of its wormhole
and popped back out into the real universe at the same moment it had left,
hundreds of light years from its initial transition point.

Crystal Rendezvous: a chunk of snowy gray ice with ice vapor trailing
behind it as it spun in the darkness. Half a century ago an armada of ships
fleeing a war in the Kolarus system had hollowed out a comet and anchored it in
orbit around a white dwarf, creating a refuge for anyone who wanted to escape
the eyes on the Aligned Worlds. Renegades, rogues, and runaways had taken
control of the deep space habitat since then, turning Crystal Rendezvous from a
quiet hiding place to something far more illicit and enticing.

Plasma trails from incoming and departing ships flared around the
station’s docking spar. Foxe glanced away from the screen to check the
auto-maneuvering readout, and the image clung to his eyes as if burned onto his
retina. When he looked back, Crystal Rendezvous had grown to fill half the
screen, looming in the darkness with a menace that made Foxe feel like a mouse
sneaking toward a cave, hoping to snatch and few crumbs and scuttle away
without waking the bear inside.

The
fees for docking and basic services like air and gravity had gone up since
Foxe’s last visit. Everything else—medical attention, CrysNet access, and
filing charges for any crimes investigated by the Crystal Blades—was extra, and
expensive. But that was the price of coming to Crystal Rendezvous.

He transmitted a credit code and waited for permission to dock. The
station spun slowly in the viewscreen. Shuttles and ships from CATs to
Dragon-class vessels rested in their slips, like birds asleep with their heads
beneath a wing.

He
shut off contact with the station and tapped a SystemBoard command. “Enable
security protocols and confirm.”

“Security
protocols engaged,” the SystemBoard responded.

No
one without the right access codes would be able to steal the ship. Depending
on what they tried, and how good they were, the security program he’d installed
would put any intruders to sleep. Or kill them.

Foxe
swung around in his seat and slipped into a long black vest. He clipped his
handcomp to his belt and slipped his wavedagger into a boot. He checked the Radley-120
pulser on his hip, charged it for a moment, and then let it slide back into its
holster.

Projectile weapons that could punch through a bulkhead or puncture a hull
were forbidden, but Crystal Rendezvous didn’t prohibit energy weapons on it
decks—just corpses that weren’t paid for.

“System sleep,” he ordered the Cat. The cockpit lights dimmed. The ship would
remain inactive until Foxe’s return, but it would be ready to power up for
departure within five minutes.

He
slung his pack over one shoulder and took one quick look back through the
cockpit. Everything locked down. If he didn’t return . . .

Well, that’s life.

Foxe
stepped into the Cat’s cramped airlock and secured the cockpit door behind him.
He shifted the pack on his shoulder, pulled the outer hatch back and to the
side, and stepped out into a short entry ramp, slamming the hatch tight.

A few steps across the narrow ramp brought him to a security pad mounted
next to the station access hatch. It took a retinal scan and gave him a numeric
access code. He punched the code in and the hatch swung outward.

He emerged into a passageway. The curved white walls were familiar, along
with the red arrows pointing the way to the station entry and the golden
illumination of lighttubes above and below.

Also familiar: the sight of a humanoid staggering through the passageway,
stopping to peer at every hatch as if he’d forgotten which section of the
Branch he’d left his ship at. He shot Foxe a suspicious glance, then continued
his search.

Foxe
confirmed that his hatch was secure and headed up the passageway. A clock above
an archway marked STATION INGRESS gave the station time as 1737/2500. Two rows
of desks, separated by a thin duraploy wall, faced him. At Egress Foxe saw two
humans, one male and one female, arguing with an android about station fees. Good
luck.

At
the Ingress desk he waited while the android behind it shifted to active mode. “Name,”
it said in a typical atonal voice. “With species designation, please.”

“Erick Foxe, human, T-23.” He extended a hand. “Take any finger.”

The
android jabbed a slim needle into his thumb. “Five standard seconds for
clearance and authentication.”

The
android would run his data through the Kick List for expulsion orders,
bounties, and outstanding fees from previous visits. Foxe thought through his
past stays on Crystal Rendezvous. Two Coraxians killed last time out . . .
paid those fees . . . The Hydurian assassin two years ago, but they shouldn’t
connect that to me—

“I
am required to welcome you to Crystal Rendezvous.” The andy handed Foxe a
hexagon-shaped badge with a clip on one edge. “This must be visible at all
times while you are on station. Please acknowledge this statement in any
language. Failure to acknowledge within five standard seconds—”

“Accepted.”
He took the badge and clipped it to his vest. He reached for the chain around
his neck that held his ID chip. “Here’s my credit.” He slid the chip into a
C-deck. Crystal Rendezvous was a NonAligned station, but they’d accept AW
credits as greedily as any station in the network.

“Enjoy your stay at Crystal Rendezvous.” The andy’s eyes dimmed as it
went back into sleep mode.

Foxe
resisted the impulse to reply with an obscene gesture.

The
door at the other end of Ingress opened into a long passageway. Illumination
came from the advertising screens, interactive and insistent, lining the walls
as Foxe walked toward the station.

“Win or lose—best gaming booths at Arkadi!” exclaimed one panel. Another
display suggested that everyone visit Uldira’s Bliss Pit for the most erotic
experience in ten light years. A sonic caress stroked his body, teasing his
crotch as he walked past holograms of dancing blue Tadori males. Then exotic,
titillating aromas tickled his nostrils: “Inhale the spices of The Cavern on
Carmen Deck!” A few steps down multicolored light flowed in fluid shapes
around him, coating his body before fading away with a faint sizzle of heat on
his skin. “Come enjoy the soothing and stimulating pleasuregels and
transfusions at the Ecstasy Court!” He walked through holographic figures,
male and female and hermaphroditic, frozen, nude, their eyes vacant as they
held their poses and breathed in shallow whispers: “StatueDance Carmen! The
most tranquil dancers in three dimensions! Alexis Deck and Carmen Deck!”

Yeah, Crystal Rendezvous exploded the senses at first sight:
nerve-numbing sex, high-risk gambling, and nark that would whipsaw the mind.
But beyond its façade—and beneath it—was where its real merchandise was bought
and sold: information.

Drilling a hermaphrodite in a tub of living gelatin meant visiting the
Dammasch Rings scattered across the galaxy. Drugs that combined pleasure with
agony, or made God real, sent most beings to the Llanos Cartel, whose dealers
could be found anywhere. For restricted weapons, classified data, exotic
genetic material, electronic and biological viruses, or to contact merc armies,
assassins, and terrorists for hire, Crystal Rendezvous was the first and last
choice of anyone who needed to do business they couldn’t transact anywhere
else.

Destroy the place—that’s what some planetary governments argued, backed
up by religious leaders and, of course, competitors trying to dethrone Crystal
Rendezvous’s status as the hub of illicit information and services in the
galaxy. It would never happen. Too many of those same worlds, leaders, and
competitors needed it. The AW tolerated Crystal Rendezvous because they needed
to know where the maggots of the galaxy did their business. And because they
needed to do their own business in the shadows when they needed to.

He emerged from the corridor into Arcade Center, the entry point to
everything on Crystal Rendezvous: Throbbing music vibrated across the high
ceiling overhead; violent curses roared from a circular door that glowed crimson
and orange. On a balcony two female Meerans danced, their fur aroused and pink.
He stepped aside for an impatient group of Thalldors and scanned the
semicircular chamber, 150 meters across, feeling as if he’d stumbled
underground into a cavern of luminous stalactites and swooping bats eager to
nip at his scalp.

Some
of it had changed, but nothing was different. The Octagon Star was still there,
its garish green logo beaming as a half-naked hermaphroditic Armala chased
after two humans pushing through its doors past two security androids. Sanctum
had stayed in business as well; its black doors were shut tight but a blue
light winked from either side to tempt passersby to investigate its mysteries.
But Shalaki was gone, and so was the Tentacle Bar. Interstellar entrepreneurs
fought viciously—with weapons, at times—for rights to a spot on Fiesta. Only
the toughest survived long enough to break even. The rest vanished down a black
hole of failed enterprises.

Welcome
back. Foxe would have felt safer skimming the event horizon of a black
hole.

Infokiosks
were scattered around the open area. He ignored a Khonian female in ceremonial
chains and stabbed a warning glare at a roving humanoid male with unnaturally
long fingers as he walked with quicksteps to the nearest kiosk. He inserted a
credit chip to activate CrysDirectory.“Spark,” he said.

In
a nanosecond the screen displayed an address and offered directions and a map.
Spark’s place was still there in Bemani, the central section, two decks toward
the icy surface then forward. Spark always talked about trying to get a better
address, closer to Arcade Center, on a higher deck, but nothing ever came of
his talk. Spark was consistent, both as a strength and a fault—one reason Foxe
had always been able to trust him.

He
headed down a corridor. Its ceiling was higher than the passage from the
docking branch, the walls a little wider, but he still felt like a rat in a
maze. Unlike most Aligned Stations, which represented vast resources designed
to burnish the egos of their corporate investors, Crystal Rendezvous had no spacious
gardens or panoramic domes to make visiting beings forget the aluminar walls
and stabilizing forcefields that held the barrier between warm, safe atmosphere
and cold, empty vacuum. The endless corridors here could feel like a slowly
tightening noose even to beings with no sense of claustrophobia. Closed in,
trapped, some species went mad in hours.

For Foxe the problem was simply practical: Getting off-station in a hurry
would always be a problem. He knew the nodes and conduits well enough to hide
from any pursuer from a short while, but every station he’d ever visited always
felt like a trap, aching to spring on him at any nanosecond.

Foxe
walked quickly. Two quiet Ustalli flattened their boneless bodies against the
bulkhead to allow him past. He took a tube down to the next level, oriented
himself quickly, and found the place where it had always been, its doors open
to the wide passageway. The single word SPARK floated in the air across the
entrance. With a grin he walked inside, letting his eyes roam.

Sandpaintings
along the walls shifted shape and color in restless waves. Stale coffee,
smoldering spices, and ale smells permeated the air. An android stood in
standby mode near the door to clear tables and, if necessary, throw drunks and
troublemakers out into the passageway. Half the tables were empty; those others
had beings in two and threes, drinking quietly, playing hologames, tossing
dice, flirting.

Foxe looked for Spark, didn’t see him, and strode to the polished lucex bar,
a meter and a half high and solid enough to repel a pulser rifle. He climbed up
into a tall stool and waited until a short humanoid female finished speed-chilling
a Purple Comet. She had to hop onto a crate labeled MAXCORP ANTARELLAN to set
it on the bar for a hulking Rann-dishi. “Drink,” she told him. Or possibly her.
Foxe couldn’t be sure from the angle. The bartender turned to Foxe with a shrug.
“Drink?”

“Centauri
whiskey. Where’s Spark?”

She
kicked her crate across the floor and found a cube-shaped bottle. “Who’s
asking?” She poured—but kept the clouded glass in her fist.

“I’m
a friend. Foxe.”

With
a cautious nod, she set the glass in front of him. “I’ve heard of you.”

“You
work for Spark?”

They
looked each other over. The woman had dark skin, narrow eyes, and muscular bare
arms. A tight black vest, loose pants, and a sliverbeam in her belt. Silver
hair pulled back tight into a knot on her scalp. “His wife. Dianar.”

Foxe
sipped the whiskey, felt the burn in his throat. “He was sure no female of any
species would ever put up with him longer than a day.”

“Three
years.”

“Congratulations
to him. Condolences to you. Where is he?”

“Dead.”

Hellcore.
Spark? No—“What happened?”

She
zeroed her eyes on him. Her arms beneath the short-sleeved shirt were thin and
sinewy, and scarred. “Typical morning. Fight between three humans. Mo—” She
nodded at the andy—“he grabbed one, the other two kept beating on him while Mo
tried to toss him out of the way, and Spark jumped over the bar to stop them.
He kicked the big one in the kids, but the little guy had a knife. No
high-energy tech, nothing special, just a long slice of sharp metal, and he put
it into Spark’s throat.” She blinked, her eyes in the past. “Right before I shot
him.”

The
injustice of Spark’s fate made Foxe want to laugh—and destroy something, or
someone. Spark had flown dozens of pickup runs that saved Foxe’s life when
they’d served in AW MilForce, breaking almost as many rules as Foxe did. Anyone
who could fly tight and fast with pulse cannons blasting around him didn’t
deserve to die on the floor of a bar. Not after he’d saved every paycheck for
it, talked about it until all his friends wanted to beat him into silence,
dreamed about it every night as passionately as his friends ached for a woman,
or a man, or a life without constant war.

But
no one deserved to die. Foxe had learned that early. You just did, without
expecting it, leaving the universe behind to forget you ever existed. Hellcore.

“Foxe.” She looked him over.“You’re the death-wish guy.” She filled
a glass with spiced brandy and set it on the bar, protecting it with both arms.
“Spark flew eleven extractions for you and almost got killed every damn time.
Gods and demons.”

“Yeah.”
I’m the one who shouldn’t be here. Foxe hopped off the stool and dug a
hand after a credit tab. “So long. Thanks for the drink.”

“Keep your ass on that stool.” Half the
brandy went down her throat in an angry gulp. “He’d want you here. Stupid
brainwaste. And he’d tell me to give you whatever you want. I can do that much
for him. Sit!”

Foxe
paused a moment, then clambered back onto the stool. He wanted to leave. Keep
his memory of the living Spark, smiling, pouring drinks and insulting his
customers, instead of replacing it with this woman in his bar. But he had work
to do, and Spark had always respected that—even when he’d been cursing at Foxe
for almost getting them both killed. “I need a place to stay. Probably just a
few days. And a data connection for my handcomp.”

“You
remember the storeroom?” She gestured toward a door behind the bar. “The cot’s
still there. So’s the dataport. It’s all yours.”

“I
paid him 50 cees a night—”

“Plagueshit
you did. You stay quiet and don’t talk about Spark and that’s all I need. Another
drink?”

“First
. . . ” He tapped the badge dangling from his collar. “I need an alternate. I
may have to leave in a hurry.”

Her
laugh had an acid bite. “That’s what Spark was there for. Yeah. I can get one.
Take a few hours.”

“Thanks.”
He lifted his pack. “I know the way.”

The
storeroom seemed smaller. Or maybe just emptier. The cot was still there, and a
sink in the corner, but the smell of sweaty laundry was gone, along with the
stacked cartons of illegal dar-brandy. But the dataport cable dangled from a
gash in the wall where Spark had hacked into the network.

Foxe
dropped his pack onto a stain in the thin carpetpad and sank onto the cot. Hard
as plastcrete. He unclipped his handcomp. Time to review the mission profile
one more time.

He
tapped a decryption code into the handcomp’s keypad. “Mission profile,” he
said. “Rumav Sil Aldoz.”

A
holoimage bloomed over the handcomp’s screen. A young humanoid with big
chocolate-dark eyes and thick yellow hair in intricate braids. In the floating
image Rumav wore a sheer tunic of silk brocade; his hands were clasped in front
of his waist. Each hand had five long fingers and two opposable thumbs on
opposite sides of the palm. Thick jeweled rings circled ten of the subject’s
fourteen fingers.

A
caption underlined the floating image:

Rumav Sil Aldoz. Heir to the Century
Throne of Riskannon. Born AW 664. Disappeared on AW 6:20:683; using using the
name Hanbor Das Tenpil he traveled through the Riskannon Prism to Vostros Prism; undetr the same identity
he exchanged AW Interstellar Credits through an independent broker and booked
passage on a transport to Crystal
Rendezvous.

A birth date of 664 on the Aligned Worlds record—a fiscal calendar whose
main purpose was to facilitate trade agreements and commerce—made Rumav 19
years old. Still a kid by most humanoid standards.

Disappearance
six days ago. A long time, but not too long.

Foxe
waved a finger over the screen to continue:

Mission overview
(1):Riskannon is a class-3
world in the Vynex System. Its government
is a type-4 parliamentary monarchy, with power shared by fourteen Families from
the founding world’s three largest continents, now representing 137 Districts
across three worlds in the Vynex System. The highest government post,
Century-Emperor, rotates between these fourteen families, with each family
assuming the Century Throne for 100 R-years [82 years AWFC]. Note:
“Emperor” is largely a ceremonial title; Century-Emperors are subject to
specific constitutional limits on their powers as detailed in the text of
Charter of Families (see appendix two). Riskannon has been an AW member
since AW 532.

Mission overview
(2): Naden Mor Aldoz is in the 84th year of the Aldoz Family’s
current stewardship of the Century Throne. Naden has implemented a program of
progressive reform and expressed interest in re-establishing relations with Taormika, a former colony planet
[P2974] which broke away from the Republic in AW 419 following a ten-year
conflict (See appendix four). Under Section
11 of the AWThird Charter, Naden has formally but
confidentially requested assistance from Aligned Research and Intelligence in
locating and returning Rumav to Riskannon.

Mission objective:Your contract is to locate Rumav Sil
Aldoz and return him to Riskannon alive and unharmed, in suitable condition to
re-establish a stable chain of succession. Operating procedures are governed by
your sole discretion and risk. Compensation and bonus will be based on our
agreed rates according to the current contract. To review your current contract
(ER 428GIR) with ARI—

Foxe waved
his hand to kill the file. He knew what he was worth to Aligned Research and
Intelligence. His contract came up for review next year; he hoped he’d be able
to negotiate an increase in his rates. In the meantime . . .

This
was better than lying around his cube on Oberix, reading and waiting for the
comm to buzz while he popped nightmare suppressants or just drank enough
Centauri whiskey to keep dead people out of his head when he passed out. A
mission was a mission: a chance to erase the past and ignore the future, and
make some money. Money that he probably wouldn’t live long enough to spend, but
he didn’t know what else to do with the rest of his life—however long or short
that turned out to be.

Maybe
this will be the one that gets me, he thought. It would almost be a relief.
The job sounded routine, but he’d learned the hard way: the seemingly
complicated missions frequently turned out to be pretty simple, while the easy
ones could turn intense in an instant.

Foxe
stared for a moment at the blank screen, and caught his reflection in the dark
surface. Then he turned the handcomp face down. He knew what he looked like.

Eyes like gray clouds. Hair the color of dirt. Scars across his neck from
the burns he’d suffered during the mission on Bekkas-tau.

An orphaned child of the Varrian system civil war, raised by local
refugees who reluctantly trained a kid to become a resistance fighter in the
insurgency against the occupying forces from Varrias-2. After years of bloody
fighting, the Aligned Worlds finally decided to step in and impose a peace, and
the only way for Foxe to escape the enemies he’d made as an insurgent was to
enlisted in the Aligned Worlds Military Force, where he trained as a sniper and
saboteur. So he’d served four years in AW MilForce before being court-martialed
for assault on a superior officer.